Isaiah 64:12

REFLECTIONS

READER! let us learn from this Chapter, how we are to pray, and what we are to pray for. Surely, the Holy Ghost hath caused this prayer of the Church; which he awakened by his grace, to be recorded and handed down through all ages of the Church, as a standing pattern of what words we are to take, and to come with before the Lord: And how sure that the Lord will hear the prayer he awakens in grace, and answer it in mercy.

Blessed Spirit of grace and supplication! thou who didst thus teach the Church; Lord, I beseech thee, teach me! For unless my soul feels thy sweet influences in an hour of prayer, too well I know, that my poor soul will be indifferent and unawakened to the employment, and cold and lifeless in it. But if thou, Lord, wilt graciously set me to pray, sure I am, thou wilt give me a spirit in prayer; And then shall I call upon a gracious Covenant God in Christ, and neither the mountains of sin in my poor nature, nor the hills of unbelief in my soul will stop the gracious communications from above; but Jesus will be glorified in causing his grace to shine upon my soul; and God will manifest himself, as a prayer-hearing God, to my humble petitions in Jesus. Then shall I run the way of thy commandments, when thou hast enlarged my heart.